Conversion of solar energy to thermal or electrical energy through the use of systems such as photovoltaic arrays, passive absorbers of solar energy, solar furnaces, through concentrating collectors with sun trackers is well established in the art.
Systems have also been proposed for simultaneously converting solar energy to thermal and electrical power.
Other systems attempting to optimize electrical energy conversion and provide conversion to thermal-energy from solar energy have been-proposed.
Systems for desalination have also been proposed.
However, existing patents and inventions proposing use of thermal energy either cater to large scale commercial generation of power or cater to a small scale. Existing inventions are not scalable unlike the subject invention which either be for large scale generation of electricity or scalable to generate power for a single building or a condominium. These existing inventions also do not adopt a multi-system approach to maximise use of all the available thermal and solar energy. Some of the existing inventions also depend solely on the sun to provide the solar energy and therefore cannot operate at night.
There are many arid areas in the world which are near the sea and where the sun is always available. There is therefore a need for an invention that maximizes the use of the thermal energy of the sun not only to generate power but to make potable water at the same time. There is also a requirement for such an invention to have large scale commercial systems so as to generate power and to process sea water changing it into potable water, on a continuous basis. At the same time, there is a requirement for a power generator which uses a multi-system approach to maximize the harvesting of solar and thermal energy from the sun.